Job embeddedness, organisational commitment and voluntary turnover of academic staff at a higher education institution in South Africa

Abstract

Academic staff recruitment and retention remain a challenge in South Africa and internationally. Most academics at South African universities are ageing, with fewer younger people entering academia. The objectives of the study were to determine empirically whether job embeddedness and organisational commitment significantly predict voluntary turnover and whether people from different gender, race and age groups differ significantly in terms of these three variables. The measuring instruments used were the Job Embeddedness Scale (JES), the Organisational Commitment Scale (OCS) and the Voluntary Turnover Scale (VTS). A cross-sectional quantitative survey design was used to collect data from a random sample of (N=102) full-time academic staff at a South African higher education institution in Gauteng. The findings showed that organisational fit, community links and normative commitment significantly and positively predicted the participants’ intention to stay at the institution. Female participants showed higher levels of organisational fit and sacrifice, hence a stronger intention to stay. White participants had stronger community links and fit, and the African participants had higher levels of normative commitment than the other race groups. The current study adds to the knowledge base on the turnover intentions of academic staff and makes recommendations for retention practices and possible future research.

Factors affecting lecturers’ decision to stay or leave academia, Namibia

“…Job embeddedness is investigated as a variable that focuses on why employees remain at work (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, 2001). It is not only important to understand why employees resign from the organisation but also what factors influence them to remain (Holtom & Inderrieden, 2006;Mensele & Coetzee, 2014). Job embeddedness is part of the forces that impact the employees' decision to stay with an organisation.…”

“…This construct is one that looks at on-and off-thejob influences. Job embeddedness is regarded as the employee's perception about the fit, links and sacrifices (Mensele & Coetzee, 2014). Job embeddedness consists of the fit, links and sacrifice thus this study will evaluate these dimensions.…”

Testing a model of turnover intention: Lecturers at the University of Namibia

“…Job embeddedness studies explore how employees fit into the organisation and community, their links (relationships with other people within the organisation and community) and the sacrifices (cost of leaving the job and community) (Holtom & Inderrieden, 2006;Mensele & Coetzee, 2014). The components of job embeddedness will be defined next.…”

“…Turnover intention can be defined as the intention of effective employees, which think about leaving their current organisation to work for another organisation (Mensele & Coetzee, 2014). It was noted that turnover intention is a strong antecedent of actual turnover (Medina, 2012).…”

Job attitudes as a predictor of work engagement of the lecturing staff at the University of Namibia

“…It has been found that when an organisation has employees who experience positive job attitudes, this impacts positively on several levels. Firstly, it impacts their level of commitment towards the organisation (Mosadeghrad & Ferdosi, 2013); secondly, it fosters emotions where employees wish to remain attached to the organisation (Mensele & Coetzee, 2014); thirdly, it negates the pressure from work demands (Sardeshmukh et al, 2012) and finally, it means that employees are more likely to be positive about their abilities to complete their work tasks effectively while being more engaged in their work (Stander & Rothmann, 2010). Field and Buitendach (2011) found that employees who experience work engagement will become more committed (affective commitment).…”